Late Start Times Research Paper

It is a well known fact that teenagers in general need more sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation: “[teenage sleep] is as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage stress of being a teen.” When schools start as early as 7 o’clock, it puts students health at risk. Adolescents already have a natural shift in their internal body clock, or circadian rhythm when it comes to sleep. Puberty allows this to happen, causing a “sleep phase delay” of about two hours. When teens can't fall asleep until late and school starts so early, they aren't getting nearly enough sleep. Lack of such, according to CDC, makes the individual

Adolescents and adults need around 9 hours of sleep daily (De Souza 5). Since schools are starting so early, they can not get the needed sleep time, eight to nine hours. Even though teachers go to school the same time as students, consequences are worse in students and it seems to have more of a critical effect on students. No matter if it is a student or a teacher, the quality of sleep is very important for everybody.

The school day should start later in order improve students’ mental health. Survey results have consistently indicated that middle level and high school students who start school at 7:15 a.m. or earlier obtain less total sleep on school nights due to earlier rise times in comparison to students at later-starting schools. () This is just the beginning of the negative impacts that early start times have on students. By starting school at a later time, students’ brains will function better, their grades and learning increases, and will be more mentally stable.

One of the biggest struggles for students today, is the struggle to wake up for school in the mornings, and to make it to class on time. Because of the start times that many high and middle schools currently have, students are having to get up early to get ready, therefore providing them with little sleep at night. They are faced with their everyday schedules, things that are happening in other parts of their lives, as well as having to keep up with their schoolwork. All of this results in a loss of sleep, with the added factor of having to wake up early in the mornings. Having a later start time for schools is beneficial for student’s health, safety, and their overall performance in school.

Almost 10% of U.S. high schools start before 7:30 a.m. Over 20% of middle schools start class at 7:45 a.m. or earlier. This is leaving students everywhere overwhelmed and tired. This can lead to tremendous effects on their health and grades. Research shows that only do later start times improve those things, but ends up increasing the school's yearly income in the long run. For these reasons, schools should make their hours later because it can affect students grades and health in a positive way.

Traditional school schedules affect students sleep patterns by forcing them to wake up early when their body wants to sleep, which leads to sleep deprivation (wol.iza.org). Again, sleep deprivation can lead to lots of negative mental and physical health issues. Npr.org says, “Teenagers are getting six to seven hours of sleep a night, and they need eight to ten.” Because most students do not become tired until around eleven or midnight, they are unable to get the right amount of sleep because the school start times are so early (wol.iza.org).

The article “Later start time for teens improves grades, mood, and safety” addresses the topic for teens to have later start times. “The evidence shows that the later the start time, the greater the academic benefits” (Wahlstrom 2016, pg 2). The author has strong arguments concluding the medical research, schools actually participating in later start times, academic outcomes, and health/activity outcome. School starting times being later could be more effective for students in their health and scholastic purposes.

School is not the most desirable place that a teenager would want to be at seven hours a day, five days a week, 180 days a year, and even more problematic is that for them to get to school on time, they have to fight their biological clocks (Hansen). Many schools have started pushing their start times back by even just an hour, and helped with the students grades and mental health by giving them the time they need to sleep (“4 Good Snooze”). Pushing start times back a good idea because it will give students the rest they need to be successful.

Students would not have a lot of time to do homework or not have any freetime. Families would also like to see their kids after school at three or two thirty not four or three thirty. Families with younger children would have a hard time with child care or babysitters. There would be a very high chance of students having to do a lot of homework which means they would not be able to eat dinner with their families and would not get the chance to hangout with friends or just chill and watch a movie. Also, if kids go to bed early whether they are tired or not, they won’t have a problem with getting up early in the morning.

In his article Mr. Carroll delves into the benefits and detriments to a later start time in schools, and he makes the argument that the benefits from a later start time to the individual student and society as a whole substantially outweigh any increased financial cost incurred in making a later start time a reality

A few years back, Jilly Dos Santos, who was a sophomore at Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri, was accustomed to running late to school. She stated that she had “trouble waking up in the morning and trouble getting to bed at night, which is a prime example of what early start times can do to adolescents”. In 2013, Dos Santos went to the school board with studies about adolescent sleep cycles and requested that starting at 7:20 a.m. was an inadequate idea. After weeks of intense debate, officials came to a conclusion that the start time is between 8:55 and 9:10 a.m., by doing this it has allowed students to get an extra hour of sleep in the mornings. Now, Jilly Dos Santos, who is a freshman in college, is pleased at the fact that

In discussions of whether or not schools should start later, one controversial issue has been that it gets in the way of parents work schedules. People who believe that it’s too much of an inconvenience claim that it’s never too soon to start getting used to an early schedule. On the other hand, those who believe schools should start later assert that it’s much better for a student's concentration and overall health. My own view is there are more benefits than negatives and we should really start to consider such a change.

Changing the school starting time can benefit us greatly. First, if we start at a later time, students will be more awake and pay more attention during class. We all learned in health class that the key components of life are taking care of our body and not overworking ourselves. Another benefit is the attendance rates can increase. But there has been times when we have accidently slept in and had no ride available to go to school. Since our parents were at work and we can’t drive, so we came late to school. This proved that starting school at a later time can improve attendance significantly and we won’t be too exhausted. We get that changing the school schedule can be a difficult thing to do and others might disagree. with the idea. However, there are ways in which it can work for those who have practice, or jobs they have to attend after school. We would let them have a study hall and a gym period at the end of the day. This way they aren’t missing out on any academic learning. Also, training for their sport is just like if it were a gym class. This would benefit the students that have practice, jobs, or just want to do better

There is a myriad of reasons which explain why students become sleep deprived during the school timings. For example, students are busy and have to juggle many things like jobs, extracurricular activities, chores, and homework after school (Epstein and Mardon, 2). With all these obligations, people cannot possibly expect students to get to bed on time and receive the needed nine hours of sleep. Even if they could finish their duties early, they are teenagers after all and want to have fun rather than habitually carrying out their perfunctory duties. When they have free time, they go to

School’s start times have been an arising issue in the United States for many years and recently began to surface. More and more individuals everyday are realizing the effects of a school’s start time on those attending the school, teaching at the school, parents of those who attend the school as well as the surrounding community. “…education seems to be the most sleep-deprived field in America” (Black, 2001). Beginning a school’s start time at 7:17 in the morning isn’t the best time to try and teach adolescents calculus or Shakespeare. “For many, the unusually early start time is nothing short of torturous. A survey of 26 Denver –area companies showed that the average adult trudges into